They are coming out with a new version of VFP soon. This should silence the VFP is dead rumors.

SQL server is great, I'm using it extensively in some applications, but IMO, it is really only necessary for distributed applications. Since it runs in its own process, it minimizes the the amount of data travelling across the network which improves response times considerably. You can also do the same thing with a VFP COM object on the same machine as the data files running the query locally and returning recordsets or XML, but you don't have all the other advantages of SQL Server, namely the security.

I use VFP data for LANs and single user systems and VFP\SQL for distributed applications.

As far as your DOS app is concerned, I would rewrite it from scratch if you want to take full advantage of the VFP object model.

Charlie